Final Fantasy XVI - A good story that I don’t want to replay
Final Fantasy XVI
About the Plot
The story is set in Valisthea, a land that has always prospered thanks to the help of the mother crystals, worshipped like gods by their nations. The fragments of the crystals bring prosperity to the people thanks to the help of their magic. This prosperity though is not shared to those they called Bearers. They are people marked from birth and treated as slaves because of their ability to use magic without the need of crystal fragments, thus they are exploited for their powers until there’s nothing left for them but to turn into stone.
The only exception is made for the Dominants, who are bearers are able to channel the energy of the EIkons, massive godlike power creatures which are often used in war. They are the only ones able to carve themselves a position of power in Valisthea despite their condition.
Lately the crystals are losing their light, the earth is slowly turning into a black wasteland overrun by monsters. The frail peace of the nations slowly crumbles and thus war is looming on the horizon in a desperate attempt to conquer more lands and establish their supremacy over the region: it’s in this very moment that the story of Clive Rosfield begins.
Firstborn of the grand duke of Rosaria, he’s been trained as a soldier in order to be a shield for his younger brother Joshua. His life gets turned asunder the night when the duchy receives a surprise attack by the empire of Sanbreque. On that night a new power sparks inside of him, turning him into Ifrit, an Eikon whose origins are shrouded in mystery.
After a life as a slave, the turning point comes when he gets reunited with his childhood friend Jill and a man called Cid. Cid is tired of the situation in Valisthea, tired of bearer’s slavery, and of the endless wars that benefit the few and leave many to death. For years he has studied a plan to solve the plague who’s destroying the land, and it’s for this very reason that he needs Clive’s help.
Cid and his resistance group want to reshape Valisthea, break the chains of oppression and create a new society where everyone can live and die on their own terms, and to do that we have to destroy the mother crystals!
The treatment of the Bearers in Valisthea is absolutely brutal and the games doesn’t shy away from showing the full dehumanization of these people: from mothers who abandon their children the moment they show this ability, people constantly being beaten up and exploited to death, even children who end up treating bearers like house pets.
A sidequest that has left a big impression on me is one where a child asks for help in finding her bearer, only for the quest to end with her finding their petrified body. The child, being completely clueless to what she just did, commands her bearer to stand up and do those magic tricks she likes so much, implying that she used them as a toy until they were completely worn out.
There’s also a strong critique to the ruling class: constantly worried about their own needs, hoarding up more money, expanding their kingdom in a constant struggle for supremacy, and everyone beneath them being just someone seen as a means to an end. Even some who are supportive of the resistance’s cause are made clear that it’s more about achieving something in return rather than supporting the cause in the long term.
I can’t help but notice how the story seems to be trying to spin too many plates, especially after the revelations that come from destroying the first mother crystal. The political component of the story seems to wane, it’s still present somewhat, but the story seems to reel into a more typical JRPG plot, with an impending apocalyptic threat by part of a new unknown entity, which gets precedence over everything else.
It doesn’t help that much of the story, reality and political aspect of the various nations of Valisthea, seems to be thrown to the player all at once in these very long and boring history and mythology lessons that hardly stick on the player, even if you manage to remain focused throughout the very long speech.
Uncovering and living through events of the new worlds in first person is one of the main attractions of this type of genre, and it’s a shame that it has been handled in a very rough way, especially from a developer like Square Enix.
What was handled exceptionally well was the presentation, this game is absolutely gorgeous visually, the character models are very expressive and very polished, the environments are very large and suggestive and the Eikon battles are a rare spectacle, pure joy for the eyes if you love ultra kinetic action scenes full of special effects. On this aspect Square never misses, although I have to criticize the flatness of the colors.
I understand the intent was to create a more low fantasy world, more gloomy, to really go hand in hand with the themes handled, but there are a lot of times when the colors are very desaturated and this makes it hard for the locations to remain impressed and have the right visual impact. Even in a game like Final Fantasy VII, with its modern aesthetic, in a world bare and polluted, on the verge of an environmental catastrophe, it still managed to have colors that were bright and left an impact.
I would like to share the same praise for the work of Masayoshi Soken on the soundtrack, I don’t think it’s bad, but no track has been able to remain impressed on me. They all do a fantastic job in the game, but they struggle to be memorable.
About the Characters
Clive is the only character we can control in this game and thus he’s the character we get to spend the most time with. I have to say that I appreciated this character. We see him grow, going from a teenager full of hopes and dreams, to an apathetic slave whose mind is set on revenge, to finally becoming the man that would take the reins of the resistance, taking the whole weight of the world up himself.
I really enjoyed watching him grow, overcoming his hardest moments like the realization of having almost killed his brother, to then rekindle his own hope once he reunites with the survivors of the duchy, and finally becoming the one that takes it upon himself to share that hope with the rest of the world. Ben Starr has also done a damn good job voicing Clive during the more agitated and passionate moments of the character, you can really feel his anger and suffering leap out of the screen.
I feel the one thing that is missing the most is a good party whose personalities could bounce back with Clive. Not always the characters accompanying you have dialogues that are able to convey their relationship and dynamics. Many of the iterations between the characters are very sterile especially during explorations, and this does kinda damage the experience.
There are some little scattered scenes that really leave their mark between Clive and the other resistance members. The most beautiful scene for me was when Clive meets back with his uncle Byron for the first time, and in order to make himself recognizable, he starts reciting a passage of a theatre opera they often did together: to me that was a very touching moment. Unfortunately in the long run all these scenes might end up looking more like a collection of moments that get lost in the shuffle. This happens because the rest of the cast, despite their potential, all share one single flaw, they don’t get used often and this unfortunately rings true for the antagonists as well.
This game has a very episodic approach to his narration and unfortunately suffers from the problem that when the focus on a character ends, said character ceases to have any meaningful presence! For as much as I appreciated characters like Cid, Gav, Dion and Benedikta, I feel they all share the same problem, where they make a fantastic first impression, but don’t have enough time to leave a major impact on the long term.
Not to say that they’re lacking major scenes, I especially thought Dion’s arc in the empire of Sanbreque was handled masterfully, but aside from that and the very tail end of the game, I really missed his presence. And a character that suffers about this the most, is definitely Jill.
Jill… I’m sorry, I really tried with her, I wanted to like her as a character, up until the end, but honestly I feel they’ve done everything wrong with her. Doubly disappointing since she’s the one active female character of the game. Final Fantasy always prodded itself with great female characters: Rydia, Terra, Tifa, Aerith, Garnet, Yuna… and it’s really sad how in the latest two titles they fumbled the target so dramatically.
Jill is Clive’s childhood friend, and that’s basically all that I can say about her. Her character arc in the Iron Kingdom is so short that feels more like a sidequest, her personality doesn’t bounce back with Clive’s and she’s quiet to the point that you could easily forget about her presence if she wasn’t visible on screen! The two of them have so little intimacy together that it has to be someone else to tell Clive, “Jill, looks very sad lately, can you might ask her if she’s all right?”
That moment was the cherry on top for me.
I get that maybe this attitude is due to the fact that they wanted to emphasize her nature as Shiva’s dominant so they gave her this cold personality, but this damaged the character way too much for me. She’s not memorable and her relationship with Clive seems out of obligation. I’m really sorry for her because I really wanted to appreciate her and Final Fantasy DESERVES her women to be more incisive.
Overall my experience with the characters wasn’t all that negative, but if I think back about the dynamics between them it’s hard to not notice that something feels missing, something that could make the party feel more like a close family, something Final Fantasy XV did incredibly well. I can’t say if that’s the fault of writing, wanting to keep to the tone excessively serious or the fact that Clive is the only playable character, but this game has a lot of wasted potential.
About the Gameplay
Turn Based or not Turn Based, this is the dilemma that is mentioned all the time about JRPGs. To some those are a necessity and a mainstay of the genre, to others it’s just an archaic design that was dictated more from limitations of the times. Personally, I only feel about saying this about the issue, as much as I have no problem with action RPGs, if this has to be the future of Final Fantasy, then might as well turn back as soon as possible.
The first approach was actually really positive, Clive controls smooth as butter, the game has excellent mobility and I was curious to see what kind of abilities I would get thanks to various Eikons. Phoenix and Shiva were focused on mobility, Garuda was used to stun enemies quicker and Titan had a very easy parry that even I was able to do it no problem, and I’m a person that really struggles with those mechanics.
Pity that the longer the game went, the more problems seemed to emerge, and after reaching the 60 hour mark, despite having the best equipment possible and having turned melting life bars as fast as possible into an art form, I was feeling exhausted!
The main issue is the lack of variety: Clive only has one weapon, his trusty sword, which only has one combo to use on enemies, and a ranged magic attack which I struggled to find any use for. By pushing the shoulder buttons the two attack buttons get replaced with special abilities given to us by the Eikons, they’re the most variety you can get in combat and you can equip up to six of them.
Some abilities are more focused on damage, some on stunning, others on crowd control, and as much as I like this approach for variety, the Eikons are unlocked during the course of the plot which makes your options fairly limited for a very long time.
There aren’t multiple combat styles, no different weapons, no more types of attack that give the player a chance to string different combos and give them a chance of personal expression in combat. It’s always the same exact approach for every single battle, with enemies that have way too much health.
In spite of the fact I was very attentive to my equipment I never felt a drastic increase in the strength of my character. Usually in this type of genre once you reach a certain level weaker enemies almost explode on contact, here even when I was 10 levels above the common mooks my regular attacks only felt marginally better than before, and it was even worse when an enemy also had a stun gauge to protect their life points.
Unfortunately fighting is the only thing this game offers, the 76 side quests all finish with some sort of battle, and the monster hunts are just another series of mini bosses to face outside of the dungeons. There’s no minigames, no card games, no fishing, nothing to pass the time outside of just keep fighting.
Is there even anything to be positive about?
Yes, the Eikon battles are an absolute wonder, pure adrenaline rush straight in the veins, especially if you, like me, are a big fan of huge action scenes. Two giant kaijus brutally beating each other in a chaos of magic and destruction, crowned it all by an excellent direction. In the practical sense these battles are even more dull and simplistic than the ones fought with Clive, since Ifrit has even less options at his disposal, but it doesn’t matter. These battles were made just for the sake of being a visual spectacle and in that objective they succeeded.
And if that wasn’t enough… We have a pet companion fighting on our side! His name is Torgal and he’s the best character in the game because he’s a really good boy!
In Conclusion
I realize that I haven’t exactly painted a positive light for this game, but I can’t hide how tired I felt when I reached the seventieth exact same monster fight.
The story has done a lot of the heavy lifting in pushing me forward, I was intrigued by what was happening, I was curious to uncover new mysteries and get to know new characters. In spite of all its problems I still had fun and appreciated the experience… but right about now I don’t think I would want to play this again in the future, which is weird for me and Final Fantasy, since I always go back to those games every once in a while. If I had to rank this game compared to the other numbered entries, I feel it’s gonna fall into the lower half.
Personally I’ll suggest you give it a shot, the game is available everywhere outside Nintendo right now, but on Steam especially you get nice sales that also include all the DLC content. So if your PC is up to the task, go for that version, you get better performance in general as well.
So what do you think about Final Fantasy XVI? Did you enjoy the story? Did you agree with some of my critiques? Do you prefer action or turn based? Who’s your favourite character and why is it Torgal?
Let me know what you thought about it, as always I’m very curious about your opinion.
For everyone else, as always, follow me to the…
SPOILER SECTION - Proceed at your own risk
I talked before about how the political focus of this story goes more and more into the background the longer it goes, that’s because after the destruction of the first mother crystal, a new entity makes their entrance in this story to become the biggest menace for Valisthea: Ultima!
Ultima’s origin goes back to the beginning of time, an almost godlike entity which is the last of their kind, an ancient species whose world got destroyed by their abuse of magic, the same kind of calamity that is now afflicting Valisthea. Of their collective, only remained one artificial entity desperately trying to survive.
Once arrived on Valisthea they created the Mother Crystals with the sole purpose of draining the planet’s ether and, once they found the perfect host, reclaim their body, reset the world and create a new ideal paradise for their collective to finally prosper.
I found Ultima to be a fantastic villain, their design is mostly human, familiar but alien at the same time, and this gives them a very strong presence. Everytime they appear you always wanna pay attention to what they have to say, but the thing I found most interesting about them is how they managed to be sneaky in their ways.
Ultima is not the classic villain that arrives with a grand entrance raining destruction, is much more evil and subtle. They crawl into your mind, stir up your doubts and fear, brainwashing you into doing their bidding without you having a chance to notice it. The way they managed to sneak into the Sanbreque empire, making it collapse from the inside by pushing Dion against his father, without them having to even lift a finger, was absolutely masterful.
But even them, like everyone, have some missed potential!
There’s a moment in the plot where Joshua uses his own body as a seal for Ultima. I was shocked because it was the first time Clive and Joshua finally got reunited and I was expecting Ultima to start poisoning his mind, putting the two brothers against each other. After all, their objective is to break Clive mentally and take over his body as a new vessel… and what better way to do that than forcing him to fight his beloved brother whom he long believed to be dead?
Joshua is a character I have a very complicated relationship with, the strong bond between him and his brother is built very well and their bond is the central focus of the story especially in the final part, when the two brothers will decide the fate of Valisthea together. But it’s in the central part of the story where there seems to be a big void.
After the fall of Rosaria, Joshua takes it upon himself to uncover the truth about Ifrit and for a very long time he’s separated from his brother, occasionally helping out in the distance, but never actually engaging with him. And throughout the entire adventure there’s this lingering tension between the two, almost like he wants to keep as much stuff secret from him as possible. And all this mystery and lack of dialogue really hampers the relationship between them in my eyes.
In my opinion they should’ve become enemies in the central portion of the story. Having a Joshua who's trying to stop Clive, maybe convinced that destroying the mother crystals is doing more harm than good, or his transformation into Ifrit can bring doom to the entire land. Taking advantage of a manipulated Joshua, forcing the brothers into a reluctant fight, and then having them finding peace together by the end, would’ve been very impactful.
Barnabas bored me to tears after two seconds he opened his mouth… This is a personal pet peeve of mine, but I’m sick and tired of these nihilist characters whose all motivation is all reduced to: Humans are evil because of their free will, everything would be better if we could just surrender our will to a higher power, our will only perpetuates an endless cycle of evil generating evil.
These are all pre baked speeches that I feel can come out of any mouth and have nothing personal, we know absolutely nothing about Barnabas and all these speeches serve no other purpose than playing pretend the character has some kind of depth, when in reality was just a very clumsy way to create a mirror of what Clive would’ve looked like as a mindless slave of Ultima.
Personally I feel that if they took advantage of their manipulative, almost eldritch horror side of Ultima we could’ve had a much more powerful story, especially that would’ve maintained the political nature of the conflict more front and center, instead of just putting it to the side.
Despite everything though, I really enjoyed him as a villain, and only the future can tell if they would be remembered as one of the better ones, or if they’ll be forgotten.
What do you think? Did you enjoy Ultima as a villain? Would you’ve preferred if the story went another direction? What would you have changed in Final Fantasy XVI? Did you feel it was one of the better chapters or one of the worst? As always don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts!
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